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Risk assessment: We under-estimated the risk involved due to hardware. Specifically, the project turned out to be much more hardware focused than we expected since our application was heavily dependent and limited by the SmartBoard and RFID equipment. As mentioned above, the SmartBoard was not fully functional until the last week of classes. As a result, we could not optimize our functionality for the SmartBoard resolution and size. Further, since we wanted to completely remove the need for typing, it was essential that we have an alternate mechanism of getting user information. We used an RFID reader for this purpose. However, this again introduced a hardware dependency and we had to focus on getting the RFID reader to work with our frontend. Since we got a working RFID prototype ready in the last few weeks and required writing a standalone server to broker interactions to the frontend, extensions to the functionality using this capability were severely limited. In particular, we wanted to implement personalization of the PosterBoard based on the time a user last visited the board and preferences for events. However, we cut this feature due to time constraints and uncertainty in the functionality of the RFID reader. This feature would also have introduced a new "personalized" mode in the system that we felt would confuse the user and could open up safety issues like another user using the previous user's information to post posters or information. It would also have been beneficial to have backup plans in case the hardware didn't go through. We had partially mitigated this risk by implementing the project as a webpage but we could have explored other alternatives.
Iterative Design: We found the iterative design process from paper prototype to computer prototype to implementation very helpful. It would have been useful to have more iterations for the computer prototype and final implementation too.
User testing: Testing the prototypes without the SmartBoard made it difficult for us to judge how interaction with the board would differ form interaction on a computer. This was particularly problematic due to differences in touch and mouse interaction. The environment in which we tested the prototype was also different from the actual environment the PosterBoard would be placed in. Since we briefed users about the project, its purpose, and high-level functionality, we were not able to test the discoverability of the PosterBoard purpose and functionality. It was difficult to gauge whether users would be more likely to interact with the PosterBoard than a normal bulletin board and whether they would be able to learn about its functionality.
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